Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-09-17
Especial Correspondence.)

manner that must be well nigh alarming
to umbrella-loving Britons. For eight
weeks-before, during and after the ju-
bilee-the vast crowds that have thronged
1.-THE Great City" have come and gone
and marveled at the unprecedented fair
ness of the weather. A half-dozen times
have I seen the worlds metropolis
swathed in rain and mist, in smoke and
dinginess, never supposing that it could
exist without its enveloping gloom. And
10! now the seventh visit has
proved its luck; the cloud is lifted, and
from discolored stone and blackened
brick and smoked marble London smiles.
For the first time to my consciousness
the parks and gardens and little green
squares bloom out of an obscurity that
must have held them all along unseen.
Hyde Park, Regents Park, St. James
Park, Kensington Gardens are now pic
turesque realities-actual bits of nature
in the midst of surrounding masses of
bricks and mortar, whereas formerly
they have seemed to me mere names, in
closed with an iron railing.
well remember going once to see the
Prince Albert memorial. 1t was during
fog, the density of which. however, we
had not tested. We descended from the
cab into what seemed like an ocean of
bad-smelling, bad-tasting mist. "Where
is the monument" / asked "'Ere it,
his" said cabby. We CROPPED about
for some minutes, feeling with out
stretched hands. Presently, one of us
touched an iron railing, and so we stood
looking until we were tired. There was
absolutely nothing there but wall of
fog. Now, the monument fairly glitters
in sunlight. Every American who meets
another in the street or hotel or park
grasps his brother by the hand with fer
vent congratulations, while the chuckle
of the Englishman is heard in the land.
During the review at Aldershot we were
covered with dust, and even when the
Queen reviewed her navy at Spithead it
still forgot to rain.
Nothing could be more lively than the
aspect of these crowded thoroughfares.
with an elegance of which only London
is capable, is incessant, showing off to
the best advantage handsome women,
faultless toilets and immaculate lackeys,
while in and out dash the perpetual han
SONS at rate of speed known only to
the London cab, and which endangers
not alone the life and limbs of pedestrians,
but also the bones and sinews of the
vehicles themselves. The shops are gor-
geous. felt a thrill of responsive
pleasure go through every yard of dry
goods upon my person at the thought of
jays, of Howell & James, of Swan &
Edgar's, and even of Peter Robinson's.
But coaches and shops, parks and palaces,
do not make all of London, as Walter
Besant has manfully reminded the upper
ten thousand, by pointing out in his book,
GAIL Sorts and Conditions of Men," that
vast quarter of London given up to the
meagre ways and means of the other
three million nine hundred and ninety
nine thousand. The stir which attended
his book was followed by another
over ''The Peoples Palace" philanthropy
ically projected and inadequately carried
out by the wealthy "West End" for the
benefit of the great unwashed" in East
London. "There are" says a modern
writer, "two Londons. The one lies to
the west, and is paradise for the rich;
the other stretches north, east, south in
ever widening misery, and is place of
torment for the poor"
Perhaps no feature of the London sea-
son is more interesting to strangers (who
have only the theatres, the concerts and
other public amusements in lieu of the
dinners, teas, balls and receptions of
fashionable denizens) than the great
number of pictures to be seen during the
months of May, June and July. Aside
from permanent collections, such as the
National Gallery, or the Dore Gallery
always open-the last spring month
brings out those delightful displays of
painting and sculpture which represent
the years work of the best living artists
One has only to look at the pictures in
the Grosvenor Gallery to believe in the
final triumph of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(whose works are now exhibited by them
selves), of Millais, of Holman Hunt and
of Edward Burne-Jones-thos ardent
spirits who first undertook to astound
the old fogies of the Royal Academy.
There used to be a great deal of fun
poked at the exhibitors of the Grosvenor
Gallery and the aesthetic rage which they
created in London. The "Pre- Raphaelite
Brotherhood" is no more; but
the royal academicians have con-
siderably modified their d-fogyism,
and few days ago monument was
unveiled in Kensington Gardens to the
memory of the once reviled Dante
Gabriel Rossetti. Indeed, the .neighbor-
hood of New Bond street tingles with
the achievements of the aesthetic school.
The Royal Institute of Painters in Water
colors, and other exhibitions of the same
character, prove that art has indeed I'M
dergone a change since the days when
the old-fashioned English aquarelle led
the world against all modern innovations
of water-color painters.
1t is not worth while to attempt de-
scription of any of the years pictures
now in London, although one of Edward
Burne-Jones and the last Alma Tadema